CES 2024: Day 0 Recap
All the big news before the show floor opens!
Editor’s note: as we usually do with our CES recaps, we send them out as special editions of our Lab Weekly newsletter first before making them publicly available here on Medium. For more timely insights into consumer tech’s biggest event, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter here. Thanks for reading!
The following CES recap was sent out on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2023.
Hello from Las Vegas and welcome to our CES 2024 coverage!
As always, the Lab team has arrived in the sin city in preparation for the biggest consumer tech showcase on earth. We’ve scouted the show floors and kept our eyes out for noteworthy pre-show announcements. Although the convention centers won’t officially open their doors until Tuesday, there have been plenty of cool stuff unveiled at press events on Monday.
Case in point: during its press event on Monday night, Sony teased a new “spatial content creation” system designed to let users edit and shape 3D models. Note the use of the word “spatial” here, because “spatial computing device” is how Apple refers to its upcoming Vision Pro headset, for which Apple just announced a pre-order and release day.
Besides, Sony also revealed some interesting updates to its Afeela concept EV, made in collaboration with Honda. An “Afeela Simulator” is being developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3.5 to demonstrate how we can shift mobility into an entertainment space through in-car connectivity and AR gaming. Sony says that the software-defined nature of the car will turn the car into a “digital playground” for creators to invent new in-car experiences. In a demo, Sony showed a game that renders a vehicle in a fantasy world alongside monsters, which you can get points for catching.
Sony also teased two IP-driven options: Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse, a Sony movie, and Fortnite.
In other mobility news, automakers are tripping over themselves to bring generative AI into their connected cars. From BMW to Volkswagen and Mercedes, many auto brands are eager to integrate ChatGPT (or its equivalent) into their in-vehicle experiences. Even bikes are not immune — Urtopia, a D2C e-bike company, built a voice interface that can generate biking routes on demand. At this point, we won’t be surprised if someone made an electric scooter that can carry a conversation with you. It goes without saying that the execution will be the key differentiator here in terms of which AI-powered in-car interface will succeed.
Other note-worthy announcements from the press events on Monday include:
Graphic chips maker Nvidia is teaming up with Getty to create Generative AI by iStock, a text-to-image platform specifically designed to make stock photos. It is trained on Nvidia’s Picasso AI model and Getty’s vast library of stock images to avoid the type of copyright lawsuits that OpenAI is facing. Nvidia stressed that it did not train on Getty’s editorial image library to prevent it from generating trademarks or known personalities.
Also banking on the AI boom is Korean chipmaker SK Hynix. The company announced that it aims to double its market cap in three years, thanks to the increasing use of advanced memory cards in generative AI training. To that end, the chipmaker created an elaborate Wonderland theme park exhibition, located in the Center Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, to raise its profile. Although it is conceived as a demonstration of its vision for a carbon-free future, per its press release, this activation also inadvertently serves as a great argument for more immersive entertainment at CES.
CES mainstay Samsung had an AI-led press event that highlighted its ecosystem of smart home devices, including a robot vacuum that uses AI to spot stains and steam clean them from hard floors. In terms of new products, it unveiled the world’s first transparent MicroLED screen (which rival LG answered with its own wireless transparent OLED TV), as well as a new speaker version of its Frame TV, called the Music Frame. Taken together, Samsung seems to like designing gadgets that blend well with home decor.
Another highlight from Samsung was that it brought back Ballie, the cute little home robot it first debuted back at the 2020 CES. The upgraded Ballie now doubles as a portable projector and, of course, is equipped with AI so that it can now converse with you via messaging. Here is hoping that Ballie is more than vaporware and becomes a real consumer product soon.
Elsewhere on the show floor, we spied the new 4-in-1 multiscope device from Withings, a few AI translating earbuds, more than a few urine analysis devices, and even a trio of male fertility home-testing devices, such as this one. Looks like the digital health sector is not even remotely done with pushing the envelope yet!
Coming Up Tomorrow…
CES 2024 officially kicks off on Tuesday with a slew of keynotes, more announcements, and fresh discoveries from the show floor! Keep an eye out for the L’Oreal keynote in the morning if you want to learn more about beauty tech and AR. For those who care about retail transformation, Walmart’s keynote in the afternoon is a can’t-miss. And if you are curious about what Intel has been up to in terms of their chips and post-Watson AI prospects, the company has a keynote session in the afternoon too,
As for the Lab, we will continue to walk the show floors to figure out the central questions we ask ourselves each year at CES: What are the new trends? Which sectors are pulling ahead? And what does tech’s biggest annual showcase say about the state of innovation overall? Stay tuned for more.
